History

Thomas W. Minnick, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Certified SubstanceAbuse Counselor (CSAC), began his private practice in February 1991. The National Counseling Group, Inc., was officially founded in April 1993 as the Northern Virginia Counseling Group, Inc. (NVCG) by Thomas Minnick and Samuel C. Gray, Certified Substance Abuse Counselor (CSAC). Together, Tom and Sam developed a practice that provides a full complement of outpatient mental health and substance abuse treatment services for children, adolescents, adults and their families in the Northern Virginia community. In 1998, NVCG expanded its practices to include home-based services and in February 2005, underwent the name change to National Counseling Group, Inc. (NCG) in an effort to reflect the growing number of offices.

The original vision was to develop an array of outpatient services that bridged the gap between traditional mental health psychotherapy and substance abuse counseling techniques. This vision continues to serve as the basis for our best practice model. Our objective continues to be the provision of integrated and comprehensive dual diagnosis services.

As noted, home-based services were developed as an offered service in 1998. The original vision of advocating for increased access and availability of home-based, substance abuse and mental health treatment for children, teenagers and families living in the Northern Virginia region has broadened throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. In May 2001 the Richmond office opened, and then in April of 2004, services were offered to the Tidewater communities from our office in Norfolk. Today, as our company continues to expand into various communities, we are an approved Medicaid provider and work with a growing number of families.

All of our staff are client-focused and have considerable experience in treating a wide array of mental health and substance abuse issues in a variety of clinical settings. Additionally, most NCG staff have worked extensively in direct service, both non-profit and government agencies. Thismodel was expanded with the addition of George S. Young, LCSWand Deborah Sikes, LPC, LSATP in 1998. Both George and Debbie have played an integral role in program development and the growth of NCG as it is known today. NCG, Inc. continues to personally recruit talented and skilled staff to provide needed services to the families in our communities.